Victims of Communist-Stalinist regime's reprisals mark 67 years from deportations to Siberia at meeting in Chisinau

About 200 people, victims of the Communist-Stalinist regime and their relatives, participated in a meeting dedicated to the 67th anniversary of the mass deportations to Siberia, in the Railway Station's Square in Chisinau. The event started with a commemoration service for the ones who never returned. The participants kept a moment of silence and lit candles, Info-Prim Neo reports. The president of the Association of the Deported and Political Detainees, Valentina Sturza, has said that, loaded on train cars for cattle in inhumane conditions, most of the deported on June 13, 1941, never again saw the Basarabian lands. The duty of the good-faith people is to keep the memory of thousands of innocent people "who found death in Siberia's cold lands or in Kazakhstan's deserts." "Those cars with two small windows, with doors locked, guarded by armed soldiers held 22,648 people, 3,470 men, heads of families, were taken nobody knew where,” Valentina Sturza recalls. For Constantin Sava, an inhabitant of Truseni village, deported at his 11 years old together with his family, everything was a calvary lasting 9 years. The mutilated lives and lost youth of thousands of Moldovans lie on the conscience of the Soviet totalitarian regime. Returning home, the deportation victims could not regain their households, says, eye in tears, an inhabitant from Hancesti, Lidia Belorusev. The participants have been indignant that never any Communist official has participated in such events, despite being invited. The meeting has been joined by representatives of the Chisinau local adminsitration. Mayor Dorin Chirtoaca has said Moldova has not yet reached the day to commemorate the victims of the totalitarian regime, as it is due. According to him, the Moldovan law, which shall return the rights of the deportees, is far from being loyal with these people subjected to so much suffering. “The compensations of 540 lei monthly are absolutely ridiculous compared with the losses the deported families suffered,” he said. The City Hall officials committed to erect a monument to the deportees till July 2009. As for the the deported church, Dorin Chirtoaca promises this problem is also going to be solved soon. According to official statistics, about 22,648 Basarabians were deported, of which only 10 % being still alive. Yet the victims maintain the numbers are bigger. They reason the statistics took it for granted that a deported family had three members. Yet it is known there were families with 7-8 and even 14 children. Although a number of modifications were operated to the law on rehabilitating the victims of political reprisals, up to now, many of them cannot get the compensations for the assets confiscated in 1940-1941 and after 1944. During Friday's meeting, state-run Radiocomunicatii refused to offer sound-amplifying equipment, despite a relevant contract with the City Hall. The municipal authorities were told about this only an hour before the beginning of the event.